Patrick Townson <ptownson@cableone.net> wrote:
> I am reminded of the days when Western Union Naval Observatory
> Clocks were in very common use throughout the United States. Getting
> those all set and synched for the change in time twice yearly was
> quite a hassle.
Now you can buy an electric clock that syncs up to WWVB fairly
inexpensively ($30 or so) and WWVB's digital signal has a DST
bit that is set/unset when the changes occur. The clock I have
does wind itself forward 1 hour in the Spring, and 11 hours in
the Fall. There is also a switch to ignore DST for areas that
don't change their clocks, and of course, a switch to select which
timezone. Still, nothing nearly as nicely made as those old
Western Union clocks.
Bill Ranck
Blacksburg, Va.
[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: But there is a nice type of clock
now which capitalizes on the Western Union cream-colored face and
logo. It is an analog style clock with a sweep second hand and
it runs on the radio signal sent out from WWV. It uses one AA
battery (good for about a year). A very interesting time piece.
I also seem to recall that when I went to high school, there was a
state law (pertaining to government buildings) saying that all
government buildings had to remain on STANDARD time year around. So
the school clocks did not change to the new time, but continued to
show the old time. The school said we would be starting school one
hour later for the remainder of the school year. Normally, I think we
started at 8:30 AM and got out at 3:30 PM. So we went to school from
9:30 until 4:30 each day therefter to agree with the school clocks
which read 8:30 -> 3:30. (That would have been most of April, all of
May and the first week of June.) But when we went back to school
that fall (we always started the Tuesday after Labor Day) we just
ignored the wall clocks, which seemed to us to be one hour slow. At
some point in late October, the school clocks began agreeing with
us once again. That only happened the one year; I think the next year
the legislators changed the rules on government buildings. PAT]
ranck@vt.edu